This invention relates generally to the separation and recovery of liquid products from more dense liquid carriers including but not necessarily limited to the retrieval of oil, chemicals and other such environmental pollutants floating on water surfaces.
Methods and apparatus for retrieval of floating materials, such as spilled oil, on the surface of water bodies, are of course well known, including the use of vacuum pressure in the retrieval process. Vacuum pressure has been used, for example, to induce air flow for entraining an oil slick, to maintain oil bodies under continuous suction, to induce a whirlpool action and to displace water for siphoning purposes. Such prior oil spill retrieving systems suffer from many drawbacks including a lack of installational flexibility, erratic operation and efficiency, and a lack of cost effectiveness.
It is therefore an important object of the present invention to provide a system adaptable to a variety of environmental and industrial demands associated, for example, with spills, outfall cleanup, and liquid recovery for reprocessing purposes.
Additional objects of the present invention include the provision of a system for retrieving floating liquids from the surface of liquid carriers which avoids the aforementioned drawbacks of prior systems including operational instability that often occurs in connection with the use of such systems on marine vessels during rough sea conditions.